


Drinks and Stories in Dark Corners

by biggestbaddestwolf



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestbaddestwolf/pseuds/biggestbaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quick ficlet concerning Kaidan and Jack, and the sort of relationship they might have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drinks and Stories in Dark Corners

Kaidan doesn't tell Jack about the dark corners he's been in. If he did that, they'd probably never speak again. She'd brush him off, tell him how he didn't know a thing about _her_ past, her world, the pain and terror that she'd known. She'd call him a geek, a loser, a brainless neutered soldier type that she didn't have time for.

The closest that he's gotten to that was a squeeze on the shoulder. A quick, 'I'm here if you need to talk.' Jack has never had plans on taking him up on it, but she knows the offer's there. She knows that if she needs to send him a message after a day of classes, to shoot the shit about their students, or about how the universe is collapsing just when she's finding her place in it, he'll keep his word.

Like Shepard, Kaidan's the good boy type. Keeps his word.

Or, at least, Kaidan's the good boy type now. Jack's seen enough rough edges for one of those blue bitches' life times, and while Kaidan's dressed his up, gotten sweet and quiet and all grown the fuck up, she catches his edges sometimes.

Usually he lets it slip when they drink together, when she's blinking in shock that he can almost keep up with her, at least until the last hour or two. When she starts telling a story, and he tells one in exchange. She used to call bullshit- but for every story there's a scar. If it's not a physical one that he can show her-

_When she has him pressed up against a wall and jumps up so she can wrap her legs around him tightly and make him moan for her, when she grinds against him in the back of the bar, when he goes down on her, and when that all happens and she rubs a hand down his back and feels each of the scars he's told her about, just like he can trace every tattoo of hers_

-then it's an emotional one, an extra burst of heat to his words or a hooded look before he takes a drink of his beer and changes the subject. Sometimes she prods- loudly and challengingly, because fuck it, the story was good, and he trailed off right before it got good, right when she was gonna find out what he had to do to the Krogan son-of-a-bitch- sometimes she doesn't- because she knows what it looks like when the wound is too deep.

Jack recognizes some of those scars. She knows what a wicked cut from a broken bottle looks like. She knows the look of someone struggling wicked hard against old demons. She's known those people; she's used to seeing those people collapse under the strain. She's used to being the only survivor left in that shadowy corner.

But Kaidan? He's stepped out from the dark corner. He's managed to look up at the light and stop squinting. Jack's not sure whether she _respects_ that- part of her feels like it's a lie, it's a denial, and she doesn't want to be that- but at the same time...at the same time, she wonders what that feels like. She wonders if she could do that.

She knows he'll hold out a hand to help her out of there, to take the last step. She wonders if she wants to take it.

_**Fin** _


End file.
